Altered Dominos

A couple of weeks ago I was grocery shopping and found a huge box of dominoes on clearance for about $2.00. I think there are 90+ dominoes in that box! Being the clearance rack shopper that I am and adding that I love to alter things, into my cart they went. I decided to make these little butterfly pins first. After sanding them a little, I added color by using my Copic refills B12, V12 and RV02. When the color was dry I used this small butterfly stamp from Studio G and stamped the image using Staz On ink. Pretty quick and easy and I am happy with them. I am sure you will be seeing more domino projects in the future!

Altered Dominos

I decided to try something that I have been seeing a lot of lately. My altered dominos will be made into magnets. I would love to make some into necklaces but other than drilling holes through them, I don't know how to do that. I have seen them done others done with a clasp type thing but I am not sure what it is I need to be looking for.  If anyone knows, I would love it if you would leave me the info in the comments. 

The first three are all done with Ranger alcohol inks and then were stamped with black Staz On and then I went around the edge with a gold pen. The stamp set is from Clear Dollar Stamps. The second was done using Copic refill (B01) and the pearl additive from the Ranger line. After I got it the color I wanted it, I embossed it with white embossing powder and edges it with the silver pen. The snowman is from a Studio G set. 

Isn't this sweet? My hubby brought it home to me the other day. I love fresh pineapple!

Christmas Gifts

Hello! Wow, I can't believe Christmas is approaching so fast! I am almost done with my cards, I think. I have a few more gift items to make and I would like to get a card set together for my Grandmother, but I think I will be done before the holiday actually arrives. My crafty friend Angela and I have decided that we will exchange cards and gifts after Christmas so that is one less thing each of us has to do! Speaking of Angela, these are her stamps that she let me borrow. Both images are from CC Designs. After stamping them and coloring them with Copics, I added a little bit of white fun flock to her hat and some glitter pen to her belt buckle. After everything was colored, I cut them out and added them to my scalloped ovals that were cut out using Nestabilities. The sentiment is from a Studio G set, I have found that there are a lot of great sentiments in some of those sets and they are especially great when you are not wanting your sentiment to be a huge focal point. The paper is from the Making Memories Mistletoe set and the ribbon is from American Crafts. Thanks for dropping by!

Little Franky

What a weekend! At the beginning I was envisioning hours spent in my craft room but that did not happen. I did have a pretty good one though, it just wasn't quite what I planned. I got to spend lots of time with Kip. Part of that was at the grocery store, but hey, we were still together. I have been making some Halloween cards over the past few days. I don't send that many out, mainly to nieces and nephews, but I also use these as themed notecards that I will send out during the next month or so. The checkered border stamp is from Stampin Up and I just used Palette black ink to stamp that directly onto my orange card stock. The Little Franky is from Studio G and was stamped with Palette ink and then colored with Copics and a silver gel pen. The ribbon is from Jo-Ann's. I simply tied knots throughout the length and then made them into stripes going down my black card stock.

Speaking of that ribbon; when I first started scrapping and making cards, I bought this skinny ribbon in every single color I could find. Many colors, I have more than one spool of for some reason. I think I bought it in every color in Jo-Ann's, every color at Hobby Lobby, every color at Michael's...well, you get the drift! Many of you know that I periodically issue challenges to myself to use up some of my supplies, so my latest challenge is to find as many ways as I can to use this super skinny ribbon. I would love it if you would play along to, if you have ideas, please leave me a comment with a link to your blog or gallery. I like the way it looks in this project, and I have used it in a couple of other ways but I would love to see anything you make with it.

Christmas in July

It has been a great day off! I slept in, no waking up to an alarm clock for me today and then got up and headed straight to my craft room. well first I jumped online to check out the challenges on SCS. The challenge in the Hanna Stamps forum today is Christmas in July. Perfect for me since I am planned a craft day with the same theme on the 18th and I pulled out some Christmas paper and embellishments last night and they were sitting there on the desk ready to go. The challenge also fit in with my self challenge to use only supplies that I have on hand. I was able to find several good deals on Christmas stuff last year so they were put away and have been waiting to be used. To make this card, I started by using the tree from the Tis the Season Hanna set to create my tree farm, masking some of the trees to make it look like rows of trees. I colored these trees with Prismacolor pencils. To make the snow on the ground, I added some Martha Stewart Glitter. I stamped Riley onto a separate piece of paper and colored him and his tree with Copic and Prisma markers. After cutting him out, I added some foam squares to the back and was going to add him to the scene, but decided I wanted to have more distance between Riley and the rows of trees so I added a second layer of foam squares. See Riley's pink cheeks? It must really be cold! I hardly ever add clothes to any of these stamps, it just looks kinda weird when I do so I leave him au natural. Stamps by Hanna Stamps, glitter from Martha Stewart, paper from the Paper Studio, sentiment from Studio G, and the snowflake is from the stash.

Speaking of Christmas in July, if you live nearby or are my real life friend, plan on joining us on July 18th for our monthly craft event at church. Normally we meet the first Friday night each month, but because of the holiday, we changed the date. We will be celebrating Christmas in July and will have some quick and simple gift ideas and Christmas cards on display. Hope you can join us! I normally start making cards in July so I may try and post these on Fridays, since that it a day that I don't always post.

We are headed out in a couple of hours to meet my in-laws. We will be grilling out tonight and heading out on the boat to watch fireworks at Nashville Shores. I am so not a boat person though. Have a great day if your are celebrating and be careful!

Friends

Good evening! How was going back to work today? I had such a hard time to getting out of bed this morning. At least there are only four days in this work week so I guess I will make it. I made this card for a Friendship Challenge with my blogger group. I used paper from the Pink Armadillo pack from The Paper Studio. Like my faux stitching? Of course it is a stamp since I don't really have the patience to sew on paper. One day, I will get a little mini machine and then maybe you will see some real stitching on my cards. Until then, I will continue using my CTMH Sew Happy stamp set. The stitching was stamped with CTMH Chocolate ink. The Friend sentiment is from Studio G, also stamped with the Chocolate ink but then colored in with a glitter pen. Flowers are Prima and the brad is from the Paper Studio. Thanks for dropping in tonight, have a great night.

Little Lady Bug

Okay, I had a lot of fun making my CAS card for the challenge earlier in the week. Enough fun that I wanted to make another one! This is another Studio G stamp from Michael's.  I love daisies, they are my most favorite flower in the world. When I saw the lady bug with the daisies, I had to have this stamp. And since it was only $1.00, it was worth the splurge. I colored the ladybug with Prisma/Copic markers and then cut out the image. I used a Marvy Punch for my green scalloped square and attached the lady bug with a pop dot. In the top right corner are brads from the Paper Studio. To finish my card, I used my paper piercer to make the flight path of the lady bug.

Lately, the Studio G stamps have been cuter each time a new set is introduced. The last time I was in there I was looking for Easter Stamps and found a couple of those, plus some barn animals and so cute little cupcakes, all wooden stamps. In clear stamps they had more cupcakes and some little fairies. I like the way they stamp too. Have you ever used any? Have a great evening!

CAS Challenge

The Challenge this week from my Ocean's 11 group is to make a CAS (clean and simple) card. Our challenge was issued by Peggy Sue. This is the first one I have made in a while. After learning to layer, match different papers and adding embellishments, it was kind of nice to go back to a simpler card. I used a Studio G stamp from Michael's that I stamped with Memento ink. After stamping the image, I went over the outline of the chick body with a Sakura Glaze pen. I really like these pens, they come in several colors and leave a slightly raised, glossy look. Then I added yellow fun flock and then went in with the orange Glaze pen and added some color for a beak. I also tracked the legs with the orange pen. I used copic markers to color in grass and the sky and tried to draw in the grass. I think I should have use a slightly darker shade for this because it blended in with the overall color. I used my long rectangle Nestabilities to make my scalloped mat. To finish the card I scored three lines on the bottom border of  the card using my Scor-Pal.

I had a lot a questions asking me where I got the frog stamps from the spinner card. I got it when I went to the Stamp Scrap Art Tour and it was made by Repeat Impressions. It's one of those booths that I purchased several stamps from. Okay truthfully there wasn't a booth that I didn't buy stamps from!

Black Sheep

I was able to participate in the Limited Supplies Challenge today on SCS. The challenge was limited to using shades of black and white only. In the instructions she mentioned that since it is the end of March comes and like a lion and out like a lamb, she used the lamb for the color choices. We were not limited to using a lamb image but since I recently found this cute little Studio G stamp at Michael's  I wanted to use it. As soon as I thought about black and white and sheep I thought of doing a black sheep somehow. Of course now, I  have "Black Sheep of the Family" by Hank Williams Jr. running through my head (and now you do too, right?). I stamped my little sheep in a straight line and then used white applique on two of them and black liquid applique on the last one. The black sheep is also sporting some black glitter from Doodle Bug in her coat, I sprinkled the glitter on before I used my heat gun to set the liquid applique. to make my black sheep stand out a little more, I used a different patterned paper under that sheep and used my Stampin Up photo corner punch to emphasize it a little more. I then used a white gel pen to make little dots on my photo corners. The sentiment stamp I bought at Big Lots a long time ago and Big Lots is the only info on it. All paper is DCWV.

Inside Birthday Calendar

Remember my birthday calendar from the other day? I decorated each of the pages, something different for every month. The coasters are 4x4 so I decided to use 2.5 x 3.5 ATC cards for the decorated areas. It was a great way to use a lot of the scraps in my stash, especially the smaller pieces. Here you can also see the actual calendar pages, the stamp is from Clear Dollar Stamps . The hearts at the bottom are from the CTMH set, All My Love and February is from a Studio G set. I love those little conversation hearts! My friend Allyson gave them to me for Christmas this past year. She knows I love them and she picked up this set of foam stamps for me. I have several candles, candy dishes and other things that have the conversation hearts on them. I will show you a couple more of the pages over the next couple of days, I was very happy with the way these turned out.

I hope everyone is having a great, relaxing weekend. Last week was crazy busy for me at work and next week is looking to be the same. So today, I have been doing almost nothing and it feels great! Enjoy your weekend and spend some time relaxing and recharging your batteries. 

Teacher Gifts

This is what I ended up making for Jenna and Samantha's teachers for Christmas. This particular set belongs to Jenna's teacher and Samantha's teacher got the pink and black ones that I posted earlier. Each teacher got a composition book, 2 RSVP pens, a coaster box, a paperclip bookmark with their monogram and an altered binder clip. Can you see it behind the composition book? I took a 4x6 piece of white card stock and edged it with a silver paint pen and then had them write their teacher a note. Then I took (2) 41/2 x 6/12 sheets of the patterned paper and adhered them together and then mounted the note onto the patterned paper. I let the girls pick out the colors and then they gave me suggestions on what they wanted to give their teacher. Oh yeah, each teacher also got a jar of lotion because I made a little bit more than I needed. Okay, way more than I needed!

This is my cooking and baking weekend. Judy still needed to take the girls shopping to get their gifts for each other so she brought each one over here for an hour or so today so that she could take the other one by herself. While Samantha was here we made marshmallows. She has always enjoyed being in the kitchen and trying new things. I told her what we were making and she was very excited, until she found out that they have to sit until the next day! I have never made them before, but our spoon taste test was impressive! Have a great weekend!

I'm Back

I have been MIA for the past few days because of my work schedule. We have had an issue arise which meant that I have been digging through archived paperwork all week long. Lots of extra hours. I haven't had to be at work at 6:30 in several years, so I was wiped out by the time I got home. What crafting time I have been able to squeeze in has been Christmas gifts that I couldn't post because the recipients sometimes read my blog. This is something that I made for myself and some friends. Inside the container is homemade lotion. I got the recipe from Denise on Splitcoast Stampers. I made a simple band to cover my plastic jar and then used Marvy punches to make a plain circle and a scalloped circle. The snowman stamp is from Studio G and colored with Prisma markers. The ball on his hat is covered with glitter. The snowflake on the band is from the PTI set Holiday Treats. I love that set, you can make a variety of labels for all the homemade treats that you make. Thanks for stopping by tonight!

Another Christmas Card

I am so proud of myself, I have already gotten several Christmas cards finished. Even though I plan on starting early every year, I never do. This cute little cat is from Pink Cat Studios, aren't they just the cutest? I got the idea for the layout at Card Sketch a Day. I colored the cat using Prisma markers. The gift is colored with the Spica markers. I love those things, I am so glad Kip bought them for me. They sparkle like nothing else I have ever used. I used red and white Fun Flock from Doodlebug on the hat and scarf. The metal ringed circle is from Jo-Ann's and was stamped with a Studio G stamp, using CTMH Holiday Red ink. All paper is from DCWV.

I am excited! Why, you might ask. I am taking a jewelry making class on Friday night. I was hoping I was going to be able to but wasn't sure my schedule was going to work out but it has. I need a new hobby, don't ya think?